Study: Asians are more keen to travel with family than Westerners

FAMILY travel is growing globally but details of who with and for how long families take vacations varies across the globe.

Asian travelers, for example, are very big on family vacations.

In fact, according to new research from Agoda and YouGov, seven out of 10 families globally take at least two family vacations a year, with Asian travelers taking more than twice as many family trips as their Western peers (five trips a year versus two).

The Agoda Family Travel Trends 2018 survey, which studied 10,000 respondents who have traveled at least once in the past year, found that over 34 percent travelers took more than five family trips in the past year.

Asia dominates this multi-holiday trend with a remarkable 77 percent of travelers from Thailand and 62 percent from the Philippines, claiming to have taken five or more family breaks in the past year.

Conversely, only seven percent of British travelers took more than five family trips.

Source: Shutterstock.

What is the biggest driver for family travel amongst these travelers? Quite simply, quality family time.

68 percent of traveler say they look forward to quality family time the most while 66 percent voted for relaxation. 46 percent embark on family trips to try new things.

British and Singaporeans are the most adventurous on family trips. Exploring new cultures as a family travel experience is most popular among these two groups (48 percent and 46 percent respectively).

Chinese and Thai travelers are the least likely to investigate new cultures on their trips, (both 29 percent).

A four- to seven-night stay is the most popular duration for family holidays globally, but there are large variances across markets.

In the UK, a four- to seven-night stay made up 41 percent of family travel in the past year, compared to only 20 percent of family travel for Thais.

Family vacations of more than 14 nights are taken by almost a third of Thais but only 11 percent of Malaysians.

Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Chinese families are most likely of all travelers to take the shorter one- to three-night vacations.

Source: Shutterstock.

The survey also looked into who was included in family vacations and found that while 35 percent of global travelers have taken a holiday with grandparents.

Thais (66 percent) and Indonesians (54 percent) were most likely to have included grandparents. They are most likely to include siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles too.

Travelers from the UK and Australia are the least likely to have done so, with only 13 percent and 20 percent of travelers embarking on them respectively.

As for anxieties relating to family travel, concerns about falling sick (36 percent), the standard of accommodation (21 percent) and family disagreements (16 percent) ranked highest for family travelers globally.

It is not just family members that the Americans, British, Australians and Chinese don’t travel with, they are also the least likely travelers to go away with friends, with only 22 percent of Americans, 23 percent of Brits, 26 percent of Australians and 27 percent of Chinese having done so in the past year.

Meanwhile, almost half (48 percent) of travelers from the Philippines tie up with a group of friends for some of their vacations, closely followed by Vietnamese and Malaysian family travelers at 43 percent and 40 percent.